Sex With Madoff

Mary Altaffer / AP Photo On the day Madoff mistress Sheryl Weinstein’s tell-all is released, Madoff victim Burt Ross confesses to a non-affair with Ruthie—and spares a thought for poor Mr. Weinstein, who joins the publicly humiliated spouses' club.

Now that my fellow Madoff investor Sheryl Weinstein has disclosed a torrid sexual relationship with Madoff in Madoff’s Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me, a tell-all released Tuesday, I too would like to make a confession.

I never had sexual relations with that man, Bernard L. Madoff, not that there would be anything wrong with it. In fact, let me come totally clean. I never even had a sexual relationship with Ruthie.

I never had sexual relations with that man, Bernard L. Madoff, not that there would be anything wrong with it. In fact, let me come totally clean. I never even had a sexual relationship with Ruthie.

Sheryl, who has clearly given up the moral high ground by telling her sad tale—she was figuratively and literally screwed by Bernie—gives us more detail than we could ever want to know, from the size or lack thereof of Bernie’s genitalia to how hot she became when the two of them made love. That her fellow investors have to hear this trash pales in comparison to the indignity her husband of 37 years must be enduring. Mr. Weinstein now joins Elizabeth Edwards and Jenny Sanford as this year’s most publicly humiliated spouses.

What would possess Sheryl to admit to adultery and to betraying Hadassah, the charity for which she served as chief financial officer during the time it invested with Madoff? My only conclusion, regretfully, is that Sheryl has sold her soul for money. Of course, there is nothing wrong with writing a book about Madoff. Bookstores are going to need to rent additional space to house all the Madoff books coming out before Christmas. But to make money from the betrayal of your husband and the charity you worked for has a distinctly pathetic quality.

Madoff's Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me. By Sheryl Weinstein. 224 Pages. St. Martin's Press. $23.99. Sheryl and I were two of the nine Madoff investors who delivered victim-impact statements at Madoff’s sentencing on June 29. She spoke eloquently when she said for months she was “unable to escape the reality of my personal devastation…four years ago we refinanced our mortgage and gave the excess cash to Bernie Madoff.” She went on to say: “It was important for somebody who was personally acquainted with Madoff to speak. My family and I are not anonymous people to him. He knows my husband’s name is Rob and my son’s name is Eric.”

What we now know all too well is that Madoff knew Sheryl in the biblical sense.

Sheryl Weinstein, like thousands of others, has been devastated by the Madoff Ponzi scheme. She was even forced to sell her home. Her words of personal betrayal spoken in the federal courthouse still resonate, but her forthcoming exposé unfortunately gives fodder to Irving Picard, who might now want to seek clawbacks from Hadassah, and to Ruth Madoff’s attorney, who has already pointed out that Sheryl’s story supports Ruth’s contention that she did not know what Madoff was up to.

It should come as no surprise that the biggest con artist in history was not loyal to his wife, but Sheryl, in betraying others for money, is tragically guilty of doing in a small way what Madoff did on a grand scale.

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Burt Ross, former mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, and former administrator of the New Jersey Energy Office, is a lawyer and real-estate investor. A book, The Bribe, was written about his exploits with the Mafia.

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